City in Crossfire—The Environment Versus Development Debate in Navi Mumbai

Triggered by the Bhopal gas tragedy, environmental protection discourse in India was channelized into the articulation of an overall protective legal instrument. Protection of air, water, land and other elements which surround human life became the foremost priority and the law enabled separate instruments to protect these elements. However, when put to practice these instruments often idolize the “environment” as an absolute entity in need of in toto preservation while the perspective of conservation is ignored. India has seen a steadily increasing growth of urbanization leading to the twenty-first century, when, in its history the highest percentage of its population is living in its cities. Provision of housing, urban services and a balanced built up in the environment is perhaps a higher challenge than protecting the environment. Moreover, the “environment” in need of protection being an absolute entity often exceeds the gamut of the natural environment. This coupled with the fact that many cities have started their journey prior to the promulgation of the environmental law, leaves them struggling to strike a balance between environment protection and urban development. In this paper, an effort is made to understand the deadlock between two sets of legal instruments, pro-environment and pro-development and how it is about to dismantle a city.